In a letter by Augustin Calmet dated 1751, we are told the tale of a regiment of austro-hungarian soldiers camped in the Banat region of Romania close to the city of Timisoara.
Because the soldiers seem to be dying as a resul of a strange epidemic the noblemen send the imperial doctor, Gerhard van Swieten, to investigate the matter and appease folk superstitions pertaining to vampiric activity in the area.
Far from calming the spirits the medic noted that, before passing away, soldiers are officers alike presented the signs of being vampire victims:
– excessive fatigue
– lack of hunger
– extreme weight loss
The men would fade away in a matter of days without the signs of an obvious disease so the locals [aka romanian paesants] took matters into their own hands and proceeded to the normal way of identifying the vampire`s grave.
The took a virgin boy and asked him to ride a white horse through the cemetery; the grave that it refused to pass was opened.
They found a nearly presteen body; so well preserved that van Swieten noted it as being “similar to a living person that was actually sleeping”.
They proceeded to staking the corpse through the heart and it is said that the vampire attacks ceased.

The story is retold by many authors so you may find slightly different versions all over the internet. The account is based on a 14th century Bohemian report and the events are said to have happened in 1345.
It is in that year that the wife of a potter died before she could be put on trial for suspicion of being a witch. The townsfolk decided to bury her at a crossroad since it was the custom at that time.
But she did not find peace and started to leave her grave at night, appearing to many people under various forms [beasts] and attacking them.
When her grave was opened it was discovered that she had eaten half her shroud so she was labeled a vampire and staked through the heart.
Enraged by this she pulled out the stake and started to use it as a weapon in her more vicious prowls in the night. More people were killed and the villagers decided to cremate her.
Only after she was burned to ashes did the attacks stop!
It is said that a whirlwind was seen at the place where the corpse had been cremated.

Among the papers that cover these happenings I mention: Erasmus Francisci`s “Der Höllische Proteus” [1690]; “The Vampire, His Kith and Kin” by Montague Summers [1928]; “The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead” by J. Gordon Melton; “Vampires” by Rosemary Ellen Guiley and many many others!

NOTE: You may find the name of the village written as Lewin. On a Czech map you will find it as Levin.

The following events took place in the village of Tupanari in the district of Vlasenicki [to locate it on the map of Bosnia and Herzegovina simply go NE of Sarajevo]
An old peasant called Paja Tomic had died on the 9th of April 1923.
His wife Cvija complained that her dead husband returned to the house at night and had become a vampire. But apparently the widow wasn’t believed so quickly by the rest of the villagers and her nightmares continues for another full month until her sons Stevo and Krsto confirmed their father’s return from the grave.
The villagers gathered and decided that the vampire had to be destroyed so the dead man’s corpse was taken out of the grave, pierced with a hawthorn stake, and then cremated. The remaining bones were reburied.Please take notice at the fact that we have a missing part here. We have no description of how the corpse was discovered upon unearthing. Usually we are given details and signs as to convince us that the deceased really was a vampire and that the villagers were in their right to proceed to the elimination of the undead. In this case it seams that the family`s testimony was enough to get a “conviction”

NOTE: You will find a couple of other sites that give you details on this but I would like to make a clarification. The supposed vampire died in April of 1923! Some other authors give you the date of 23 May because that is when an article on the matter was published in a local newspaper.
The case can be found in “The Vampires: A casebook” by Alan Dundes and you may also find a transcript of the news article above mentioned.

According to the farmer Lako Petrovic from Zabrgje the following happened around 1758 in the village of Cengic in the Zvornik district [region East of Sarajevo].
The story is that of the wife of a priest [regionally called a “popadija”] and it can be found in a series of books I will list in the notes.
After she died other people started dying immediately.
Having had lost almost all of his family an old farmer called Pero kept watch at night and saw the popadija coming into the house. He chased her away with a piece of burning hawthorn.
At this point it seams the vampire tried to lure him out of the house but Pero warned her that he will not allow her to cross his doorstep but won`t come out either. Apparently the vampire remained near the house until dawn and threatened Pero by telling him that none of his family will survive to help him in his quest to destroy it.
The next day he told the priest but he would not believe that his wife was the undead.
Then he went to the authorities and got permission to open the grave. He went to the cemetery with the most respectable people from the village and they found that the popadija’s body was terribly inflated so it was decided to deal with her in the usual manner – they drove a stake through her stomach and set the corpse on fire, burning it to the ash.
When they wanted to fill in the grave a snake came out [sign of the devil], which was killed straight away.
This put an end to the deaths in the village.

The original text was published in 1908 in “Slavische Volksforschungen” by Friedrich S. Krauss and from this date I drew my approximate date for the events because in this text the timeframe is given as “some 150 years ago”. The case is also mentioned in “The Vampires: A casebook” by Alan Dundes.

In “Isis Unveiled” by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky we find the account of a Russian vampire and I must say that we do have quite a tale here.
“About the beginning of the present century” is when the story begins, with the wedding between the governor of the Provence Tch and a young woman, daughter of one of his servitors.
Needless to say that the union was forced upon the young girl. She was in love with someone her own age and was enthusiastic thinking of a wedding with him.
But the 60 year old influential man was infatuated and he was used to having his way! He was of a “malicious, tyrannical, cruel and jealous disposition”.
He beat her and locked her up in her chambers for weeks at a time and his jealousy was so great that he wouldn`t allow her to see anyone alone.
He eventually fell ill and, guessing that the end was near, he made her promise that she would never marry again – threatening her that if she ever did he would return from the grave to punish her.
After he died, he was buried in the cemetery across the river.
Time passed and the widow`s fears crumbled because she could now see her former love interest. As it was natural, the two were betrothed again.
On the night of the customary feast well after all the guests had retired, the house was disturbed by the screams of the young widow. She had been attacked by her dead husband – apart from the black and blue bruises she also had two small pierced wounds on her neck.
At first the peasants didn`t believe her but the next morning the guard stationed at the bridge reported that a black coach had passed him by [heading from the cemetery towards town] just before midnight.
Despite the fact that the new governor did not believe the story he doubled the number of guards from the bridge crossing the river. All was in vain, even the family of the young widow moving into the house to help her… every midnight the couch would pass the bridge and head for the house. The guards couldn`t stop it and the people in the mansion fell into a lethargic state leaving the widow vulnerable to the attacks of the undead.
Morning after morning she would be found bruised, bleeding and closer to death.
Even the local priest came to pass the night in prayer for the young girl; but he too subdued to the strange state so it was necessary for the archbishop to come and perform the exorcism ritual.
Initially they went and tried to stop the vampire on the bridge by posting a priest with a crucifix in front of him, but he succeeded in getting to his victim.
They then resorted to the ultimate solution – the corpse was exhumed and pinned to the ground by planting a stake through the heart. As the story goes, the corpse had the ckeeps and lips reddish but the rest of him was of an unnatural pale.
The usual ceremony was presided and the corpse re-interred. Then the attacks ceased.